Sali Berisha

Sali Ram Berisha (15 October 1944-) was President of Albania from 9 April 1992 to 24 July 1997, succeeding Ramiz Alia and preceding Rexhep Meidani, and Prime Minister from 11 September 2005 to 15 September 2013, succeeding Fatos Nano and preceding Edi Rama. He was a member of the conservative Democratic Party of Albania.

Biography
Sali Ram Berisha was born in Tropoje, Albania on 11 July 1944, and he worked as the personal physician to Enver Hoxha. However, he became one of his country's first intellectuals to renounce membership of the Party of Labor of Albania and call for democratic reform in 1989. He became leader of the Democratic Party of Albania, founded in 1990, and he succeeded Ramiz Alia as Prime Minister following the overwhelming victory of the DPA in the 1992 parliamentary elections. His economic reforms and the introduction of human rights (such as the 1995 abolition of the death penalty and an agreement to respect the rights of minorities) remained superficial due to continuing corruption in politics and the economy, the discrimination against the political opposition, and the growth of popular violence. His government collapsed in 1997 in the wake of the collapse of notorious pyramid schemes, and he became Prime Minister after the DPA's electoral victory in 2005. In 2013, the Socialist Party of Albania and his former coalition partner, the Socialist Movement for Integration, unseated the DPA, and Berisha resigned the party leadership and returned to Parliament.